Episode Transcripts

The enigmatic online puzzle known as Cicada 3301 has become an internet phenomenon. But who is behind these cryptic quests? Is it a government agency or the work of one lone crazy person? In this episode of Clouded we dive deep into the mystery of Cicada 3301 and we will never be the same.

On January 4, 2012 a mysterious image appeared online. It contained a simple message in white text on a black background. The message read:

"Hello. We are looking for highly intelligent individuals. To find them, we have devised a test. There is a message hidden in the image. Find it, and it will lead you on the road to finding us. We look forward to meeting the few who will make it all the way through. Good luck."

It was signed 3301.

The author or authors of this message have never been identified. Nor has anyone come forward to say they have finished the complex puzzles and personally met the individuals behind it. It is a mystery that has confounded all that have encountered it.

It has been called "the most elaborate and mysterious puzzle of the internet age" and we are here to shed some light on it.

Are you ready to jump down the rabbit hole?

Hi my name is Victor and this is Clouded, where internet meets mystery.

The puzzle known as Cicada 3301 has grown in notoriety since 2012. With legitimate cryptographers, coders and everyday citizens turning themselves into internet detectives. It has become, to some, the biggest mystery online.

To many others it has become a source of frustration and for some, paranoia.

Paranoia because people began “disappearing” from collaborative Cicada forums. There were phone calls at 2 a.m. with only dial tones at solvers houses. There was talk of moles on message boards that were planted by those behind 3301. And then what has become to be known as “The Warning”.

It read: “I was part of what you call 3301/Cicada for more than a decade, and I'm here to warn you: Stay away."

Today on this episode of Clouded we will try and answer 5 questions
How did it start?
What are the puzzles?
Have the puzzles been solved?
Who is behind it?
What is the sacred book of Liber Primus?

So how did it start?

If you were on the anonymous image message board 4chan back in 2012 you may have come accross the original post. It was simple. No hoopla. In fact if those viewing images on 4chan probably didn’t even notice it. At first.

The image that was posted was the one you heard at the beginning of this podcast. And because it was white text on a black background it was unlike any other image posted at the time. It soon became hard to miss and nearly everyone on 4chan was talking about it.
A clue to solve the first puzzle was given in the text. Once someone figured out the “message hidden in the image” it was on to the next challenge. But first, everyone had to figure out what the Roman Emperor’s had to do with this modern day riddle.

What are the Puzzles?

Unfortunately we don't have the time to go through every puzzle so I will include some of the best ones from 2012.

Hidden within the image that started it all was a line of code that was not code at all. When the image was placed into a text editing application there was a line that read “TIBERIVS CLAVDIVS CAESAR says "lxxt>33m2mqkyv2gsq3q=w]O2ntk"”

This is what is known as a shift cipher, or a Caesar cipher. This method of encryption is named after Julius Caesar who used it to encrypt private conversations. It is a type of substitution cipher in which each letter is replaced by a letter some fixed number of positions down the alphabet

For example if I wanted to encrypt the word ‘Clouded’ then I would choose a number, lets say 3. Then I would substitute each letter in the word ‘Clouded’ with a letter that is 3 spots down the alphabet. That would give me the word ‘FORXGHG’. As long as you knew how many letters to move down the alphabet you could decipher my word or words.

When the text was correctly deciphered it quickly became apparent that it was a url address or web address. That led to another image which was a duck. The duck had text written above which read “Woops! Just decoys this way. Looks like you can't guess how to get the message out.”

To solve the riddle behind this image, solvers had to use a steganography program called “OutGuess”. The hint being the text “guess how to get the message out” written above the duck.

There was also a phone number that when dialed contained a voice message. Here is the voice message that greeted those who had come this far:

The size of the original image was 509 by 503 which are both prime numbers. When you did the math with all 3 numbers. The answer was yet another URL address.

There were GPS coordinates that pointed to specific pinpoint areas in France, Poland, South Korea, Australia, and 6 different states in the U.S.

Also in 2012 there were GPS coordinates that spanned the globe. They included 6 different states in the U.S., France, Poland, South Korea, and Australia. At each of the coordinates there was a poster with a picture of a Cicada and a QR code. Once the QR codes were scanned with a QR reader, two messages appeared.

The first one read:
“In twenty-nine volumes, knowledge was once contained.
How many lines of the code remained when the Mabinogion paused?
Go that far in from the beginning and find my first name.”
This was followed my math problems involving prime numbers.

The second:
“.A poem of fading death, named for a king
Meant to be read only once and vanish
Alas, it could not remain unseen.”
Again followed by prime number equations

Both messages were followed by this text:
“You've shared too much to this point. We want the best,
not the followers. Thus, the first few there will receive
the prize.”

One of the final clues in the first year was another website address. The web address was that was given ended in a .onion, which when put into a normal browser such as Firefox or Chrome, would give you the results for a search and not a page. But by entering the same url into a tor-equipped web browser, which is an anonymous browser that can get you into the darknet, you were greeted with this message:

“Congratulations!

Please create a new email address with a public, free web-based service. Once you've never used before, and enter it below. We recommend you do this while still using tor, for anonymity.

We will email you a number within the next few days (in the order in which you arrived at this page). Once you've recieved it, come back to this page and append a slash and then the number you recieved to this url.”

It was signed 3301.

If things weren’t weird enough already, this is where things got really strange.

Have the puzzles been solved?

From this point on there is only hearsay and “leaked” pieces of what happened. None of the following information was available publicly to those who were solving the puzzles. It could be true, it could not. I will leave it up to you to decide.

There were two different emails received by those first few who reached this far. If you want to read the full text please head on over to our website where it will be posted. But the quick cliff notes versions are here:

The first email said there would be no more solving of puzzles necessary. It claimed that Cicada 3301 was not connected to any hacker group or involved in any illegal activities. It also mentioned that they were “much like a *think tank* in that our primary focus is on researching and developing
techniques to aid the ideas we advocate liberty privacy security you have undoubtedly heard of a few of our past projects and if you choose to accept membership we are happy to have you on-board to help with future projects.” It then asked three questions that were to be answered by the recipient. The questions dealt with privacy, free information, and censorship.

The second email still had puzzles that needed to be solved. The first being an RSA puzzle. The second involved two songs that had encrypted text on it.

Not too much is known beyond this point. There is an account of a Marcus Wanner who surfaced in 2014. Marcus claims to have finished the puzzle in 2012 and had been recruited by the secretive group. He says he had been working on software for Cicada that would protect whistleblowers who were facing jail time. The software was called CAKE.

Marcus and the other Cicada finalists never finished coding the software. They were “let go” before completion.

A new cryptic message appeared online in 2013. Then again in 2014 and 16. Since 2012 No one has come forward to say that they have had any further contact with any individuals who claim to be from Cicada 3301. In fact the puzzles from 2014 and 2016 have gone unsolved because of one frustrating aspect, the Liber Primus.

So who is behind It?

There are many theories as to the identity of the individual or individuals behind Cicada 3301.

Could it be an Alternate Reality Game? In 2001 as part of the marketing for the movie AI and game that would follow an ARG was created by Microsoft. It was a murder mystery that played out across hundreds of websites, email messages, faxes, fake ads, and voicemail messages. But to this date no company has come forward to claim Cicada as their own.

Was it a recruitment tool for a company to get the best minds into the fold? In 2004 a white billboard with black text appeared in Silicon Valley. It read {first 10-digit prime found in consecutive digits of e}.com. The answer led you to another equation which then led you to an interview with Google. Again no company has come forward and said Cicada was their recruitment tool.

Was it a way for the CIA, NSA, Britain’s GCHQ, or any government agency to recruit new hires? Both The U.S. Navy and NSA have used online cryptic puzzles to try and recruit coders and hackers. Both have cited Cicada 3301 as their inspiration for creating their own online cryptic riddles to solve. But no government agency has come out and said they they are Cicada 3301.

Is it a cult? The Illuminati? Maybe even the Freemasons or some other secretive group? Could it be a religious cult with a technological bend to it?

We may never know. Unless of course you can decipher what has been the bane of all that have answered this calling and been said to be impossible to solve.

What is the sacred book of Liber Primus?

Ask this to anyone that has tried to solve the 2014 and 2016 puzzles and you will get nothing but frustration.

One solver was quoted as saying “ It felt like a slap in the face to those who thought they’d made it through the 2014 puzzle”

It seems that the nearly 60 page book of runes is not solvable. Apparently there are too many ways to interpret what is inside and too many places to hide or encrypt data. Many have tried but no one has come forward to say they have figured it out. At least not publicly.

In January 2016 a tweet of an image was sent from a twitter account that has been associated with Cicada. The image had white text on a black background and it read :

“Hello.
The path lies empty; epiphany seeks the devoted.
Liber Primus is the way. Its words are the map, their
meaning is the road, and their numbers are the direction.
Seek and you will be found.

Good luck.
3301”

If you are brave enough, seek out the Sacred Book of Liber Primus and challenge it runes.